


Homecoming

by fabricdragon



Series: Odyssey [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 221B Baker Street, Asexual Sherlock, Epilogue, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Love Confessions, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 02:42:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9637352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fabricdragon/pseuds/fabricdragon
Summary: and after Unwanted Attentions, Sherlock gets to go home to Baker Street, and to John.This may be read almost as a stand alone,, since it recaps the basics of what happened in the prior work.





	

John Watson had spent the first few days after Sherlock’s death in shock.  He’d just started to feel anything by the funeral, and a part of him was still convinced, somehow, that Sherlock wasn’t gone.  He began to understand Sherlock’s insistence that the willingness of someone to switch to past tense was a clue, because even after putting his hands on the body he simply… couldn’t.

He would come down in the morning and expect Sherlock to be on the sofa, or in his chair, or standing by the mantle communing with his skull.  He woke up hearing violin music and his heart would stop, only to realize it was a distant sound, or the wind, or a radio somewhere.

He stopped reading newspapers, or watching anything but sports, and started averting his eyes from newsstands.  The reporters stopped bothering him after he put his fist into a too-inquisitive nose. Greg let him off with a warning, and John learned to avoid them.  Eventually, people stopped recognizing him. 

After a month, he called Mycroft about Sherlock’s things, and received a terse message to either leave it all alone, or box it and put it in his bedroom. He supposed even Mycroft was mourning. He began the slow process of putting everything away. 

John lost time: some of it from sitting, quietly going over Sherlock’s books and case files as he packed them away; some of it, honestly, from drinking.  When he came to in the flat– hung over and nauseous, with no idea how he’d gotten there– he stopped drinking altogether. When he started talking to Sherlock’s skull, he decided he needed a therapist.

Three months after watching Sherlock plummet to his death, he saw a therapist again for the first time in over a year; after a few sessions, she gently suggested moving out of Baker Street.

“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” John told her quietly. He didn’t admit that a part of him couldn’t go anywhere else because he was still convinced Sherlock would come back.

“You need some distance.  I know a few places that are set up for veterans until they can get their feet under them: you could stay in one for a short time, just to sort things out.”

John suspected Mycroft’s involvement, since it was nicer than his old bedsit, but he couldn’t complain. 

Time crawled by.

Six months after Sherlock– and that was exactly how his life was sectioned in his mind: before Sherlock, Sherlock, after Sherlock– he got a text from the security company to go to the flat to reset the alarm.  He was reluctant to do so. He hated to go back: every part of the place howled loss at him. When he got there, he wasn’t surprised to find that Mrs. Hudson was away: otherwise, she would have reset it.  He got out his key and let himself in.

 _It didn’t smell the same anymore_ , John noted with a pang.  _Mrs. Hudson’s baking, yes, and her herbal soothers, but it was lacking the acrid smell of experiments, and the always-clinging, faint smell of body parts…_

_Who knew you could get nostalgic for that?_

He reluctantly walked into the flat, looking at the floor;  he didn’t want to look up and see the dust, see the emptiness.  He let himself look up and see it as it had been: he could picture Sherlock standing there, fingers running over that damned skull, staring at it like he hadn’t seen it in ages…

Then he stopped in his tracks with a gasp. _He was THERE._ He was standing there, wearing clothes John had never seen before, but they suited him, looking better than he had in the weeks before… he… died…

“Sh-Sherlock?”

Sherlock turned and looked so lost… Then he saw John and he was across the room in three strides, and… _Sherlock was HUGGING him?_  Hugging him like he was trying to convince himself John was real.

“You’re alright…” Sherlock breathed into John’s hair. “When you weren’t here I was so afraid…”

John stood there blinking, stunned, his hand coming up and patting Sherlock on the back without thinking. Somehow, they ended up on the sofa.

Sherlock pulled away and straightened up, trying to pretend that hadn’t happened.

“You’re alive…” John was just marveling. _He looked alright, but the expression on his face was so lost…_

“Apparently.” Sherlock’s dry voice didn’t have any of its usual bite. “I’m so glad you are.  Jim said he–“

“Who?”

“Moriarty. He’s not dead either,” Sherlock said,  as if it wasn’t a matter of concern, while he was staring at John with a sort of wonder.

John sat back, stunned. “But–“

 “I meant to let you think I was dead, for your safety.” Sherlock wouldn’t let go of his hand- as if John would vanish.  “I THOUGHT Jim was dead, but he’d had snipers, and they would kill you if they knew I wasn’t dead– that was the only way I saw to keep you safe.”

 _He wasn’t making a lot of sense. They were both alive?  Mycroft had said… He must have known_.  “But what–“

He kept talking over John’s attempts to interrupt, “And some things happened that I can’t tell you about, because I don’t want you killed, but I hadn’t been dead all that long when I was kidnapped–”

That suddenly  snapped into John’s attention. “Kidnapped?! What?”

“My brother…  My brother found out Jim was alive, and hurt him– but Jim escaped.  I don’t want you involved with it.  I’ve been a prisoner for months.”

“Prisoner for months” was the first part of this that really made sense. John started checking him over frantically.

“I’m fine, just recovering from being drugged to be moved.” Sherlock looked at him and put his hands on either side of John’s face. “You… Jim threatened you. I couldn’t leave.”

“Is he dead? No… you said he wasn’t? What happened? How did you get away?” John realized the babbling Sherlock was doing was panic over him and took a deep breath, “I’m safe, and I’m alright.”

“Jim’s quite alive, and I didn’t escape.  He let me go– to some extent– in trade for my brother,” Sherlock said, his voice shaking toward the end.

“Mycroft?!”

Sherlock nodded. “He hurt Jim, and… took my place at the center of Moriarty’s attentions, I’m afraid.”

“We’ll go after him! You–“

“Lost,” Sherlock said flatly. “I lost, John. So did Mycroft. All I have left is keeping everyone safe.”

John hesitantly pulled Sherlock into his side. Sherlock turned and wrapped his long arms and legs around him, pulling John’s head into his chest.

 _It was odd, the things that came into focus first._  “Did you get a haircut? Your hair looks–“

“Jim thought it was getting too long, he brought in a stylist.”

John felt somewhat reassured. _This must be real: I wouldn’t hallucinate Sherlock with a different hairstyle._  “You really weren’t hurt?”

“Physically? Only the one time when one of his guards got angry at me–Jim stopped him.  Other than that? No.”

John felt minute tremors as Sherlock held him. “I’m okay, Sherlock. I’m safe. I’m just SO glad you’re alive…” _Not physically hurt, no, but my God he was damaged somehow._

“Jim was going to take you away from me, or, more like, make me leave you– he told me.  Burn the heart out of me, indeed. You’re my heart: you have been since you moved in.”

John stared, open-mouthed, at Sherlock. After a while, he said, “I never imagined you saying anything like that.”

“I never imagined thinking it, much less saying it.” Sherlock pulled himself away a bit, but he kept an arm around John. “You’re not gay, I know.  It’s alright, I don’t care.”

“Are you? I never asked, you seemed so...”

“No,” Sherlock said. John blinked in confusion. “I don’t know that I’m anything. Does it matter? I suppose I prefer the curves of the female form aesthetically– they’re like a violin– but I never thought it mattered much that way: I don’t care about sex. Anyway, I love you.”

John felt like someone had punched him. He couldn’t breathe. “I thought you said–“

“Yes, well, I’m an idiot.”

“Yes, yes, you are. I love you too, you know.” John sighed, “Even when you’re completely intolerable.”

“That’s good. I’m often intolerable.”

“Usually intolerable.”

Sherlock just nodded. John sat there with Sherlock’s arm around him, and his arm around Sherlock.  He didn’t know what would happen next, but for now? Sherlock was alive, and here, and they loved each other.

They’d figure something out.

**Author's Note:**

> Please note: John is being hit by a lot at once, but UNLIKE the canon TV show it has been less than a year, not 3 years, and Sherlock doesnt come bouncing in like "hey, so I'm back, lets go back to normal"  
> plus he honestly has the excuse that for about half this time he's been a prisoner, and said so.
> 
> PS. sad to say John has little or no experience with Asexuality and it is very likely to cause difficulties later, ah well.


End file.
